


Non-Binary Blues

by decadent_mousse



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Non-Binary Hermann, Other, non-binary newt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-02-23
Updated: 2015-02-23
Packaged: 2018-03-14 18:54:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,221
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3421793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/decadent_mousse/pseuds/decadent_mousse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermann has a bad experience, but makes a new friend in the process.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Non-Binary Blues

**Author's Note:**

  * For [patster223](https://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/gifts).



> A birthday gift for [patster223](http://archiveofourown.org/users/patster223/pseuds/patster223)! Happy birthday, friend! <3 <3

Hermann stormed into the stall and locked the door securely behind him before sitting.  He had known it would be a mistake.  If his own family wouldn't take him seriously, he wasn't sure why he'd thought anyone else would, much less people at _school._  He'd been all but outright laughed out of the room.  
  
 _"Non-binary?  Sorry, but this is a club for serious members, not made-up genders.”_  
  
He had nodded, politely excused himself from the room, and gone straight to the bathroom – the boy's bathroom, even though today was a more feminine day, he didn't feel like being chased out of _another_ room – and had remained there ever since.  He wondered how long he could sit here after school hours before a member of the custodial staff came and chased him out – or his parents started to wonder where he was.  
  
He swallowed thickly.  He wasn't looking forward to going home.  Or anywhere else, for that matter.  
  
He sniffed and wiped at his eyes angrily.  He refused to cry.  This day had already been humiliating enough.  
  
He heard the bathroom door open and froze.  Sneakers squeaked against the floor, and he could see someone's shadow pass by.  A student?  A teacher?  He had been in here the better part of an hour and most people had left, he would have thought, so a janitor seemed more likely.  
  
His first instinct was to climb on top of the toilet so his legs wouldn't be visible.  He didn't want to be bothered, better if nobody realized he was there.  It was a foolish notion, of course, because even if he could do that without aggravating his hip,the janitor would surely want to clean the stalls as well.  
  
He needn't have worried, however.  A moment later, he heard a zipper unzip and the familiar tinkling of someone relieving themselves.  
  
He let out a soft sigh of relief.  
  
"Is someone in here?"  
  
Shit.  
  
Hermann breathed as quietly as possible and didn't respond.  
  
"Come on, dude, I can hear you breathing." He paused. "Uh, okay, that sounded less creepy in my head.  Are you okay in there?"  
  
"I'm fine."

“No offense, but you don’t really _sound_ fine.”

Hermann swallowed past the tightness in his throat.  “I am.  Really.”

He wasn’t, but he also wasn’t about to pour his heart out to some random stranger in a school bathroom.  He’d faced enough ridicule and harassment for one day.  He didn’t want to talk to anyone else.  He didn’t want to do much of anything, except perhaps get swallowed up by the tiled floor.

He heard the door of the stall next to him creak open, and a few seconds later a hand full of toilet paper appeared under the wall of his stall, waving at him.  

He sighed.  “That is not–”

“It’s not for your ass, dude.”

“What?”

“Dude, you can’t fool me, okay?  I’ve cried in my fair share of bathrooms, too.  Just take it.  I promise I don’t bite or have cooties or anything.”

“‘Cooties?’  I’m seventeen not _five_.”

The toilet paper waved at him again beseechingly.  “See?  You’ve got nothing to be afraid of, then.”

“I’m not so sure.  There’s still the matter of possible biting.”

The other student let out a surprised snort.  “Was that a joke?”

Hermann didn’t dignify that with an answer.  He rolled his eyes and reached down, taking the offered paper.

“Just so you know, it was really tempting to grab you and go _rahhhr!_ but I resisted.”  The hand, which was still on Hermann’s side, made a clawed, wiggly fingered gesture.

“Such admirable restraint.”

“Right?”

The hand thankfully disappeared from whence it came, and Hermann half-thought he might finally be left alone.  That turned out to be wishful thinking, because the person didn’t leave the stall, and after a few moments of silence, started speaking again.

“You wanna talk about it?”

“If I did would I be sitting in a _bathroom_?”

“I dunno, would you?”

“Why won’t you leave me alone?”  Hermann hated how his voice quavered, and it just further fueled his desire to blink out of existence entirely.

“H-hey, look if– if you really want to be left alone, I’ll leave you alone.  It just seems like you could use… someone?  To talk to, maybe?  Whatever’s wrong, sitting in here for the rest of the day isn’t gonna help.”

Hermann sighed and stared at the stall door.  “I’m not sure why you care, frankly.”

“Do I need a reason?”

Hermann hesitated.  He had no idea who this person even was.  He was certain he didn’t share any classes with him – he would have recognized that voice.   They were alone here, which could be either a very good or a very bad thing, depending on how far his new “friend’s” friendship actually went.

“I attempted to introduce myself to the LGBT club with… less than desirable results.”

“They were dicks, huh?”

“Yes.  Yes, they were.”

"Oh man, screw those guys.  They were pretty rude to me, too.  They actually threw me out when I talked to them.  Like they _literally_ threw me.  One of them grabbed me by the back of my shirt and dragged me to the door."

  
"That seems a bit extreme."  
  
"Well, umm.  I might have said a few not-so-polite things when they started laughing at me.” 

There was a scuffling noise from the stall beside him, and before Hermann could ask what his newfound “friend” was up to, a face suddenly popped out of the same small crevice near the floor that the hand and toilet paper had a few minutes before.  

“Do you realize how filthy that floor is?”

He shrugged, which looked a bit odd from his position on the floor.  “It’s not that bad.  I’ve laid on the floor of worse bathrooms.”

Hermann shook his head, staring at him incredulously.  

The other boy had extremely disheveled hair that Hermann somehow doubted was solely from writhing around on the floor and wore a battered leather jacket that had seen better days.  His glasses framed bright green eyes.

“Hi.”

He realized he was staring and cleared his throat, glancing upward in a way he hoped conveyed primarily annoyance.  “Do you often crawl into the bathroom stalls of strangers to befriend them?”

“Uh, no.  Not lately, anyway.  My name’s Newt.  What’s yours?”

“Hermann.”

“Hermann,” Newt repeated.  “Are you new?”

“Relatively.”

He had only recently moved to the US.  Before that, he’d spent most of his life getting shuffled from boarding school to boarding school, until his parents divorce.  He had hoped his change in circumstance might give him more opportunities to be himself, but so far it hadn’t been much different than any other school he’d been in – albeit dressed in a different skin.

“That explains why I haven’t seen you around before.”

He stared at Newt.  Between his squeaky voice and pitiful jacket, he was rather certain he’d remember him, as well, if he had encountered him before.  

He also had a rather vivid mental image of someone picking him up and chucking him effortlessly out the door.  

As if he could tell what he was thinking, Newt said, “I may be tiny now, but one day I’m gonna have a growth spurt, and then _I’ll_ be the one tossing _them_ out doors, you watch.”

He chuckled at that mental image.  While he supposed it was possible, he had a difficult time imagining it.

Newt grinned up at him and pointed incredulously.  “He laughs!”

“You realize,” Hermann said, ignoring the blush creeping across his face, “you could report them for their behavior.”

“Pfft, nah.  Why give them the satisfaction, y’know?  I’m not gonna let ‘em get to me, and you shouldn’t either.  They’re not worth it.”

“It’s just–”  Hermann sighed and shook his head.

“What?”

“It would have been nice to feel as though I… belonged.  That I could be accepted by someone – somewhere – for who I am.”

Newt’s smile wavered.  “I get that, man.  I do.”

They sat – or, in Newt’s case, laid – there in silence for a few moments.  It was surprisingly free of awkwardness, considering they were in a bathroom, Hermann’s nose was running, and Newt’s shoulder was laying in a dubious-looking puddle on the floor.  

Newt, unsurprisingly, was the one to finally break the silence.  “Hey, do you eat?”

Hermann blinked at him, uncomprehending.  “...Yes?”

Newt shook his head.  “No, I mean, obviously you _eat_ , but I meant, with me.  Do you wanna go eat?”

~

Newt sat down heavily beside Hermann and laid a paper bag on the bricks between them.  

He gestured enthusiastically.  “Dig in!”

Hermann peered into the bag apprehensively, resisting the urge to curl his nose.  “When you mentioned food, I thought you meant _actual_ food.”

“This is actual food, man.”  He caught himself.  “Umm, is that okay?  Me calling you ‘man’ and ‘dude?’”

“It’s fine, I don’t mind it, but _this_ –” Hermann pulled a burger out of the bag and waved it at Newt.  “Do you know what they put in these?”

“Nope, and I don’t wanna know.  It tastes good, and that’s all that matters.”

“Wonderful,” Hermann muttered.  “That’s an excellent attitude to have.  I applaud your health-conscious behavior.”

“Thanfph yoo,” Newt replied around a mouthful of bread, processed meat, and highly suspect secret sauce.

Hermann shook his head.  “You have sauce on your face.”

Newt wiped absently at his face with one of the fast food restaurant’s flimsy napkins and ate another fry.  “Did I get it?”

“No.”

He wiped his face again, wiping nearly every area of his face except the area covered in dubious condiment.  Hermann halfway wondered if he was doing it on purpose.

“Oh for the love of–”  He snatched the napkin out of Newt’s hand and leaned in.  “Hold still.”

Newt obeyed, which surprised Hermann somewhat.  He didn’t strike him as the type inclined to hold still.

Hermann wiped away the ketchup – gently, so as to avoid scrubbing Newt’s face raw with the rough napkin.  While he was at it, he wiped his mouth, too, which had its fair share of lingering ketchup.

Newt stared at him quietly, and Hermann’s hand lingered on his face a few moments longer than it probably needed to.

“Dude,” he whispered.  “You just mom’d me.”

And just like that, the moment was gone.

“Excuse me?”

“You mom’d me!”

“I did not!”  

“You wiped my face, you wiped my mouth, you did everything except that spit-shine thing.  You _totally_ Mom’d me.”  He laughed incredulously, eyes sparkling.

Hermann’s face heated and he turned away, taking a bite out of his burger – which wasn’t entirely terrible, not that he was going to admit that – and hoping his classmate wouldn’t notice his blushing.

"Don't let it get you down, buddy."

It took Hermann a moment to realize what Newt was referring to.  
  
"I don't care,” he said.  
  
"Uh, obviously you do or you wouldn't have been weeping in the bathroom." Hermann shot him a sharp look, and Newt held up his hands. "Just sayin'."  
  
"It's frustrating."  
  
Newt nodded and took another bite out of his burger.  "I get that.  Eat some French fries, you'll feel better."  
  
"This is not something that will simply go _away_ if I throw food at it!"  
  
"Dude, chill.  Just chill.  Eat something and I promise you'll feel better.  I'm not saying it'll magically fix your problems, but it'll...I dunno, stick a band-aid on it for awhile."  
  
"Yes, of course," Hermann muttered darkly.  "You are a man of unparalleled wisdom."  
  
Newt swallowed and said, before his next bite, "An agender person of unparalleled wisdom, thank you very much."  
  
Hermann inwardly chastised himself for his assumption.  When Newt had mentioned his own encounter with the club, it had never occurred to him that Newt himself might be a fellow non-binary individual.  "I apologize."  
  
"Don't worry about it.  Do you want some ketchup?"  
  
"No, thank you."

“So where’d you live before you came here?  Do you like it here?  I mean, aside from the assholes at school?  What was your old school like?”

The questions were so rapid-fire, Hermann’s brain took a few moments to process them.  He wasn’t used to this kind of probing behavior.  Most people his age that he’d interacted with in the past had been very private – or had been his own siblings – he wasn’t used to this kind of interest.

“Bavaria, for the most part, and… not very different.  It was a boarding school.”

Newt snorted loudly.  “I’d say a boarding school’s pretty different, man.  You went there year-round, right?”

“Yes, but aside from that, it wasn’t much different.  The students were better dressed, perhaps, but…”  He trailed off with a shrug.

“Is that thinly veiled insult about my fashion sense?”

Hermann regarded Newt.  Battered leather jacket aside, he was also wearing pants that looked a couple sizes too small and his shoes were an eye-searing shade of red.  His clothing wasn’t to _his_ tastes, certainly, but they suited Newt.  They added to the overall “disheveled bathroom lurker” look that he seemed to be cultivating.

“I have better things to do than insult someone for their clothing choices,” he sniffed.  “Besides, if I decide to insult you, I promise it won’t be veiled.”

“Same here, man.”  Newt grinned.  “Speaking of which, does your grandpa buy your clothes, or…?”

Hermann threw a French fry at his face.


End file.
